Reviews

Dee Snider: Dee does Broadway

07/06/12 || Cobal

Weird albums or rarities are often either neglected or hated just because. Sad but true. Personally, whenever the crowd refuses even to pay any kind of attention to almost anything, I feel particularly curious about it. That was my criteria when choosing this one for the current review.

Frankly, I don’t know exactly what I was expecting from this one, yet I felt a little disappointed after listening to it the first time. And the second, and the third too. Make no mistake, the album has been flawlessly recorded, played and produced. The arrangements are fine and the fusion‘s OK. Perhaps it’s even more than OK. It’s just I got a little bored around the 8th track, and there are twelve of them!

Even so, there are some really rockin’ good songs such as “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd” and “Whatever Lola Wants” which by the way, both reminded me of one of Ozzy’s latest decent efforts for their keyboard sort of darky background; “Big Spender”, surprising as the fact that skank Cyndi Lauper sings a duet is, is actually a very catchy and groovy tune. “Mack the Knife” on the other hand, is the greatest cover of this song I’ve heard, and believe me, I’ve checked a lot of them. Finally, “Cabaret” is just fine.

Sadly, and despites the bunch of fun covers it encompasses, as well as Dee’s outstanding vocals – it’s amazing how well this ol’fart still can sing -, the album gets to be boring right after the half of it, and even annoying. Again, there’s nothing actually wrong with the rest of the songs, at least nothing wrong by my book. As all mainstream American productions, “Dee Does Broadway” excels in the budget department, and this makes it a lil’bit _ too perfect_ for my taste.

It’s just my humble guess, but maybe, MAYBE the concept of theatre songs gone hard is a good idea… for a couple bonus tracks in a deluxe edition of a serious release, or why not trying making a regular covers album that includes one or two of these experiments? I regret to say forty six minutes of this was too much.